Welcome to my timely 2015 GOTY awards, ok so I'm late, I wanted to play a few more games before writing this. I still would love to play more from 2015 but then I would have to do these in like April and no one wants that. Compared to 2014 this year was a far better year. You can look back at my post from last year, depressing isn't it. Well this year we got a bunch of major game releases, the new generation has hit its stride and Nintendo still continues to support a dead system. We had far better games this year but it feels like we are simply getting some updated versions of games from last gen that were better than the previous entry but not as good as the best in the series. There are some new gems sprinkled throughout which made 2015 quite memorable.

Below is a list of all the 2015 released games I played:

The Order 1886

resident evil revelations 2

Zelda Majora's Mask 3D

Hotline Miami 2

Bloodborne

Axiom Verge

Mortal Kombat X

Batman Arkham Knight

Witcher 3

MGSV

Destiny Taken King

Mario Maker

Disney infinity: Twilight of the Republic

Grow Home

CoD BO 3

Prune

Disney Infinity: The Force Awakens

Undertale

Fallout 4

Her Story

Elliot Quest

Splatoon

Velocity 2X

SW Battlefront

Until Dawn

Helldivers

Rocket League

So all my awards will come from that pool of games. There are some clear omissions that I would have loved to include because I know i would love those games, mainly Tomb Raider and Ori. I would have also loved to play Life is Strange as it is getting loads of awards. Outside those three I am pretty confident my thoughts won't change much if I had played every game this past year.

I'm going to do things a bit differently this year, I have become inspired by the giant bomb GOTY podcast and I love how they debate their way to a winner. Since getting people together here to debate things is a pain I will do the next best thing, I shall debate myself! So for each category I will go through my thought process and choose a winner. If you hate reading you can still skip to the large colored bold letters that let you know who wins.

Miscellaneous Awards

Best Graphics:

This year had some standouts. Witcher 3 had one of the most beautiful worlds I have ever seen in a game but I would say that is more art direction than the technical aspect. MGSV looked stunning in cutscenes and in certain locations but in other ways the last gen elements show up, still great looking game. This really comes down to four games this year; The Order, Star Wars Battlefront, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Until Dawn

Until Dawn has incredible character models and stunning locations mostly due to the preset camera angles. That said most everything is static, it's a simple game which is always dark and heavily directed. I think it hides it's graphics well so because of that it's out. Rise of the Tomb Raider is super impressive on my rig, giving perfect frame rate with incredible effects. But some models look a bit too much like the last game The Order is mind blowing in the way it looks in motion, like a modern CG movie you can control. Everything about it, models, backgrounds, lighting, effects is stunning. With battlefront though you get some of the most photorealistic looking locations I have ever seen. Also the sheer scale of it all is impressive, the level of detail is super impressive. Play on endor during the day and tell me it's not one of the most amazing graphical achievements you have ever seen..

That said Battlefront I feel is not as consistent. Models in general aren't the most impressive. When you take a ship and fly down toward the ground it doesn't look that natural. The order is consistent in all areas of the graphics, it deserves the win.

Winner : The Order 1886

Best Music:

This category is only going to cover original music, so battlefront doesn't get to win because it has the best movie music soundtrack and MGSV doesn't get to win for having a great collection of 80s music. The big production games had the usual orchestral scores but none of that stays with me. Witcher 3 had some great music but I can't remember any of it. Batman sounded like batman, CoD sounds like CoD, fallout hardly has music. The smaller games had some good soundtracks like Axiom Verge and Hotline Miami 2. Hotline in particular is known for its music and this sequel had a better soundtrack than the first but it wasn't as original as the first time you played the original. Axiom Verge is a great homage to old SNES like scores but nothing to memorable.

To me this comes down to three games, Splatoon, Undertale and MGSV. MGSV has the usual assortment of action movie songs, the series is known for some of the best game music of all time. Now MGSV is lacking some really memorable songs but it still has music that perfectly hypes the gameplay. Listen to the loadout screen song, you will want to join the army. But it's missing that one memorable song that serves as a theme for the whole game. Overall with the licensed music and the original score MGSV may have the best overall soundtrack but that is not this category.

Splatoon’s soundtrack is totally crazy, it sounds like nothing I have ever heard before. Its just an odd mix of sounds that fits the look and feel of the game perfectly. So many tunes will be engraved into your brain it is so catchy and lively. Brilliant soundtrack. On the other hand you have Undertale which takes its love for old school gaming and applies it to all areas of the game especially the music. This is a six hour game with like 60 different tracks, the sheer amount of songs is impressive but the best part is how perfectly it works with the story. Everyone has a theme, the game itself has a main theme and these themes evolve as the story evolves. It it all comes to a head in the final moments when the music and the story lift to emotional highs. It has every kind of song from the melancholy to techno hype. Game music to me has to be memorable, almost hummable and Undertale has that in spades. Undertale is the winner.

https://youtu.be/g2-6GFkMpdM?list=RDYTy9v9a7Tmo

Winner: Undertale

Best Story:

Lots of good stories this year, I am missing a big one, Life is Strange so make note of that. Lets start with Her Story which got huge attention for its unique premise and story of a woman answering police questions. Her Story only works because the story is compelling, I was hooked from the start and loved peeling back the layers of this mystery, and like a good mystery the ending is left to interpretation. As cool this whole experiment was it was still kind of simple, one character basically… maybe.

Witcher 3 is big GOTY winner from the medium and that has to be due to story because the gameplay was lacking. What Witcher accomplishes is extremely impressive, nearly every single quest no matter how small has some story attached to it. Your actions have reactions many hours into the game. You shape the story and the world. Plus it is a mature story with interesting characters. That said this is fantasy 101 mixed with Game of Thrones. After a while I got sick of the 100th sob story of how some monster ate a relative, or there was some coverup of a crime. The story of the Wild Hunt and the chase for Ciri is ok, the moments between Geralt and Ciri are great but the rest is standard stuff.

Fallout 4 is the usual bethesda stuff, this one in particular has bland characters outside Nick. Until Dawn is pretty cool but it is just a horror movie story. Batman has a great look at the psyche of Batman but the villain plot is boring. This leaves me with MGSV and Undertale. MGSV has the most ambitious and most well told story from a visual point of view. The cutscenes in MGSV put all other games to shame, it’s ridiculous the level of mastery Kojima shows during those moments. The problem is there aren’t enough of those moments. MGSV is just too fragmented and scatter brained to work as well as the past games. Plus the language virus is just weird, even for this crazy series. Then there is the whole issue with the game and story not being finished, yeah that kind of holds it back a bit. Still it has the best story moments of the year like Quiets story, Huey’s breakdown, and the outbreak scene.

Then you have Undertale that has very basic presentation but the story is engaging from start to finish. Its concept is filled with originality. I said it in my review, Undertale feels like a Pixar movie video game, cool concept that ties with our world and our emotions with very likable characters. I have not been that emotionally invested in characters in a long time. Undertale made me cry, for that it had the best story.

Winner: Undertale

Best Original Game:

This is for brand new games only, I don’t care if Bloodborne pretends to be a new franchise, it is not so it does not count. Some of the indie games like Axiom Verge, Elliot Quest, Helldivers are fun but not GOTY material. Order is trash. I don't know what to do with Mario Maker, is it a new franchise? I guess, even if it is I don't think it lived up to its potential.

We are down to Undertale and Splatoon once again. Undertale is aggressively original, nothing really plays like it, the story is unlike anything in gaming and it leaves a huge impression. Splatoon is an absolute breath of fresh air for a stagnant online multiplayer genre. Splatoon can be played on and off for hundreds of hours, undertale can be played a few times but it's only 6 hours long a game. Undertale feels like a one time wonder. Splatoon feels like the next major Nintendo franchise which can grow into something very special. I have to go with Splatoon on this one.

Winner: Splatoon

Most Disappointing Game:

This category is a math equation, to be most disappointing you need to have high expectations, the higher the expectation the more you can be disappointed. The game I had the most expectation for is MGSV. After that I would say it was Fallout and then Witcher 3. Bloodborne I feel made it out even, I always hope the next game I play is the best in whatever series it is in and bloodborne failed to do that but it was still great. Fallout 4 is clearly not as good as the last two despite the best combat in the series. But bethesdas formula works so well that its still a blast to play. Witcher 3 had the potential to be one of the best RPGs ever but the gameplay still holds it back. I never cared for Witcher 2, i think this franchise is hugely overrated so this wasn't a big disappointment. I knew Order would suck, so that can't be it. I think Battlefront pretty much ended up as I figured it would.

Super Mario Maker has a case here, this should be a magical game that gives infinite mario levels but to find a good level was near impossible. Also not having levels tied together really hurts the experience. While the creator tool is nearly perfect it was missing a lot of standard mario game options.

MGSV is the other way I can go, despite it being my GOTY (spoiler alert). Yes a game can be the best game I played all year and be the most disappointing game of the year, that can happen when your expectation is greatest game of all time. The MGS series has many of my favorite games ever, every time I play one I expect the best game of all time and MGSV is so close to that and yet fails for the most dumb reasons. All it had to be was MGS, just have the same level of story as past games, the same level of boss battles, oh and AN ENDING would have been nice. But this is an unfinished game, it is unfocused and the story is a mess. They got the gameplay so right but faltered in the other areas and because of that it's not even in my top three MGS games. That's a major disappointment for me. It has to be MGSV.

Winner: Metal Gear Solid V

Best Online Competitive:

Just to get this out of the way the best coop game is easily Destiny Taken King, nothing is better than playing with a group in that game so I am not going to waste my time with that category. This yeah I played so many shooters, so unlike me. So let's get the boring traditional stuff out of the way, Call of Duty, Destiny and Battlefront, they do what they do well but what they do bored me. Games where shooting is the main focus bores me, I'm not that good at it so forget it.

This category is about three games, Splatoon, Metal Gear Online and Rocket League. MGO is usually my go to anti online shooter. It has so many crazy mechanics and plays so different than anything else it's exactly what I want. Like MGSV this is the best playing MGO but it felt so under developed, it came out a month late and it feels messy in a way the others didn't. I still rather play that than the other shooters I mentioned.

So we are down to Splatoon, the most unique, fun online shooter I have played maybe ever and Rocket League the most brilliant simple concept for a sports game. Rocket League is one of those games that just make so much sense looking back, a bunch of boosting cars hitting a giant soccer ball, hell yes. At first it feels like you can't hit anything but play for a while, get a goal or two and you are hooked. It's pure fun, it feels like something from the old days of gaming, just focused on fun. Then you have Splatoon with its brilliant gameplay mechanics, incredible presentation and surprisingly deep leveling system. Splatoon wins for me on the depth alone, it gives me something to chase and to keep building on.

Winner: Splatoon

Best Performance / Voice Acting:

Troy Baker! Wait what? He's not in anything noteworthy, did he die? It's nice for him to give others a chance to win. So we have lots of good performances from well known actors to total unknowns. Viva Seifert who plays the lead in Her Story is very noteworthy, she IS the game.If don't care about her there is nothing to care for in that game so she does have a great performance. That said it's rather subtle and not that explosive by design, it's just a woman talking.

The cast of Until Dawn does a great job of playing up the stereotypical horror roles but let's face it, it's horror acting. Rami Malek who plays Josh is the stand out, he does an incredible job as a guy I can't spoil. He is up for real acting awards now so this game stuff is beneath him. :P

MGSV oh what you could have been. You got the man, the Jack Bauer, and decide to never have him speak. Sutherland is horribly underused, not his fault. The best performance of the game goes to series vet Christopher Randolph who plays Huey, the tortured twisted version of Otacon. Such a likeable voice that we have all grown to love put into a character that is despicable and Chris plays it off perfectly.

The entire cast of witcher 3 does a fine job but no one outside the baron really stands out. James Clyde plays the perfect drunk King and plays the twists and turns of his character with great emotional impact. He also sounds exactly like Robert from GoT, I swore it was the same actor. He's my number two.

But the best performance this year is hands down Mark Hamill's triumphant return as the Joker in Arkham Knight. This is the best Joker performance he has ever done, by being inside batmans head you get a Joker that knows every secret, every dark thought batman has ever had. The way he toys with you throughout the game had me laughing constantly. This game explores the dark half of batman better than most anything I have read or seen on the character, it's brilliant stuff and it works because Hamill is The Joker. His voice acting was so good in this game that he didn't dare speak a word in Star Wars because he knew it wouldn't compare, true story.

Winner: Mark Hamill for The Joker

Best Publisher:

This is usually the Nintendo award but not this year. Nintendo had a rough year, they hardly had anything for the holidays, the 3DS was lacking in big games. Not their usual output of greatness.

This year I will give it to WB interactive for having three of the biggest games of the year; Mortal Kombat X, Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight. They had some other good games as well like Dying Light. While the games were better than any other company had this year some of their business practices were disgusting. The biggest being the batman on PC debacle. Take this as an award just judged on the games themselves not the business practices of the company.

I'm going to combine this discussion with the genre awards. As I go through the games I will award them. Overall this year was the best since 2013. I felt this was the year that the current gen systems came onto their own and we are finally getting those memorable games that define a generation. On top of that the indie scene is kicking ass and covering all sorts of genres and doing some cool things. There really was something for everybody.

Let's begin with some of those indie games, notably Undertale and Rocket League. Rocket League has taken the gaming world by storm selling millions of copies and being available to many more through PS plus which was a genius move. It's so much fun even when you have no clue what you are doing. I feel like this is some modern version of the arcade sports game like an NBA Jam type experience. Easily my sports game of the year.

Undertale I love dearly for the way it presents its game concepts and how it basically makes a story built around what players are expected to do in RPGs. It's one of those games that I feel is about video games. Though its simplicity holds it back from really being a contender for me. Axiom Verge was a very good Metroid clone but it didn't do enough to really stand out. Hotline Miami 2 is still addictive fun but not as good as the first one.

I did play more RPGS that I am used to but honestly this RPG qualification is not working for me. Is Fallout 4 a good rpg, nope, it's a great action exploration game though. So should I give it best RPG just because it is categorized as such? Same with Bloodborne, I have never viewed the souls games as RPGs, they are far more action adventure games with RPG elements. Then you have Witcher 3 which is the same thing, an action adventure game that dabbles in role playing. Even Undertale I wouldn't say fits the RPG mold as it's only trying to look like one. If the RPG genre is becoming so open to interpretation that almost anything fits in it then why are we still getting angry when “RPG elements” are being dumbed down. I really don't know what to do with this genre. I feel like if I played Xenoblade X I would easily pick that because of my history with the first game.

So out of all those games which was my favorite “RPG”, it's a close one between Bloodborne and Fallout but I pick Fallout. Too many souls games back to back and BB was my least favorite of the series. Fallout is also my least favorite of the series as well but the enhancement of the combat really made that game far more enjoyable than it should have been. It's basically a tie honestly. So RPG of the year if you want to call it that goes to Fallout 4. Note the trend of these games not being the best on the series, it's going to happen a lot.

Of the shooters I played Destiny Taken King and Splatoon were the best. CoD is the same shit, the campaign was a let down compared to what I was expecting, why do I think they will change. SW Battlefront, don't get me started on that shit. They have something there, a core that can be made into a really cool game and they don't care, so fucking lazy. Taken King is a huge step in the right direction for Destiny but not far enough. The new focus on better boss battles, secrets to find in the game world and better loot system was a welcome change but there are still so many things that make you pissed off. I'm still waiting for Destiny to become the gem it can so easily become. Splatoon on the other hand is pure fun. Every time I play that game I am enthralled with every match, with every comeback and heartbreaking loss. The single player campaign was a joy to play, the final boss one of the best in years. Nintendo showed they can compete in any genre when they try, Splatoon is my shooter of the year.

Mortal Kombat X is the only fighting game I played so guess what it wins best fighter! Even if it had competition, like let's say SFV came out last year it would still win. It's packed with fun content, the fighting system is no longer a joke, online features are great. MKX is the total package and fighting game of the year.

I'm giving Until Dawn best adventure game, the only other adventure game I played was her story and that wasn't that good. Until Dawn is better than the Quantic Dream games it emulates, highly recommended. If I had played Life is Strange it perhaps could win this category so take note of that.

I don't even want to do best platformer because I only played Mario Maker and I am disappointed in that game. The creator mode is AMAZING but everything else is just half assed. The so called campaign is a total junk, we could have had a full on Mario game from the devs but nope it's bite sized shit. That's the problem, Mario games work as a FULL GAME, the progression of skill and new platforming elements. Splitting it up into millions of random levels takes away from that, Nintendo offers no way to tie levels together to make your own GAME. Plus they reward the most shitty levels, the automated stuff. Playing through the highest rated user levels is like a trip into Mario hell. I feel like playing Ori and the Blind Forest quickly to see if it's as good as everyone says so it could win this category.

Let's get down to the main category, action adventure. I actually didn't play as many of these as usual but my two favorite games of the year come from this category. First I want to give love to RE Revelations 2 which had so much fan service and was a great throwback mix of old and new, loved it. So my GOTY runner up is Batman Arkham Knight which is one hell of a game. It's not as good as Arkham City though but I would say its second place in the series. It's exactly my kind of game filled with action, puzzles, exploration loads of variety. Still so many games feel like just a new version of what we played before and batman fits that critique perfectly. It's why Metal Gear Solid V is so easily the Game of the year.

In a time where it feels we have played every kind of game and are just improving graphics and story, here comes a game that redefines how an action game should play like. It sets a new standard for all stealth games. The way it used the open world and gives the player full gameplay freedom in every way is unlike anything I have played. There are elements here and there from different games but no game has put it all together like MGSV has.

To start the action mechanics are so fluid, so open to so many actions and ways to interact with the world. Take that and add in other game systems like full day and night cycles with patrols, bases that communicate with one another and can be independently taken out. Missions that offer total complete freedom in how to approach, attack, sneak and extract. Never have I felt so in control, to me playing this game felt like a new step up in how a game should feel. I have not felt something like that since RE4, that feeling of “wow I haven't played something that plays this way” I could mess with one area for hours and hours and never get bored.

If only it didn't have massive story and pacing issues, oh and if it was only finished. So many of the elements that made this series what it is were butchered. The elements that are keeping this game from being perhaps the greatest game I have ever played are elements the past MGS games excelled in. Even with that this is an important video game, this is something that will be emulated for years to come. So many of the other games feel like just another game in the series, MGSV is a drastic change in what came before, it dares to be innovative. The other original games this year just don't match the size and scope of MGSV, nor are they anywhere close to as deep from a gameplay perspective.

Time for the year roundup, my favorite part of all this. Lets analyze what I played. For reference here is last years thread http://freedomcgc.com/groups-2/ring-of-fire/forum/topic/dvaders-2014-goty-awards-and-year-in-review/

So lets start with what I bought in 2015 and break it down further from there.

Games Bought/Received (Not counting Plus games or free to play games):

PS4

The Order 1886 (returned)

Resident Evil Revelations 2

Hotline Miami 2

Home

Bloodborne

Mortal Kombat X

Axiom Verge

Witcher 3

Batman Arkham Knight

Mega Man Legacy Collection

Grim Fandango Remastered

SW Battlefront

CoD Black Ops 3 (returned)

Fallout 4

Disney Infinity 3.0 (with SW OT and TFA games)

Destiny Taken King

MGSV

Driveclub

Wolfenstein New Blood

Until Dawn

Dark Souls 2

PS3

Blood Omen Legacy of Kain (PS1)

Flashback

Twisted Metal Black (PS2)

De Blob 2

Wii U

Metroid Prime Trilogy (Wii)

Elliots Quest

Super Mario Maker

Splatoon

Doc Louis Punch Out

Earthbound

PC

Tex Murphy Collection

Arx Fatalis

Deus Ex Invisible War

Chainsaw Warrior

Talisman

Warhammer 40k

Undertale

Repubilque

Murdered Soul Suspect

Tomb Raider collection

The Last Remnant

Serena

SW Jedi Knight Collection

Vita

Myst

Vita TV

3DS

Zelda MM 3D

Zelda Links Awakening

Sonic Lost World (Gift)

Super Mario Bros. Deluxe

Haromonknight

Mobile

Framed

Prune

Monument Valley

Total Games: 53

Estimated Costs: $870

Down $200 from last year and down 17 games. I could do better, so many of the games on that list I just got in random sales and don't want. I already spent way more than all of last year this year, man this years cost is going to be nasty. Where I bought my games changed a bit, no more 360 games, no wii games, far fewer 3DS and PS3 games. The Best Buy deals are amazing and some games I treated as long rentals. I think I did well with my spending last year.

Battlefront could have had a good arcade style campaign making use of the ground troops, movie characters, vehicles, through some objectives together and tie it together with some cutscenes and boom campaign. But noooooo. The single player content it does have sucks.

MGSV has an ending, but leaves one plot thread totally open which was never finished, that also included the final boss fight and true ending cutscene. They included the unfinished scene in the making of documentary.

XCX would have done well, I know I consider it a true RPG unlike everything else called an RPG.

What the hell is going on. Well no surprise PS4 has totally taken over as my main system with the PS3 starting to fall behind. The rest is crazy, 6 mobile games, why do I keep trying out these mobile games as if I am missing something, they are almost all awful. 4 Wii U games, seriously, wtf do I have that thing for. 360 is almost out. Portable systems took a massive hit now that I don't travel for work anymore, from 13 last year to 1 3DS game this year. Wow. This is weird.

Genre Breakdown:

Action/Adventure - 19

Platformer - 6

Fighting - 6

RPG - 5

Puzzle - 5

FPS - 4

Misc - 4

Adventure - 3

This one is kind of surprising. At the top its the same, Action adventure with a huge lead and platformer second but now fighting is in the mix. 6 fighting games for me is a ton, now I counted punch-out as fighting so that added a bit to it. The rest was nicely distributed. FPS dropped big from last year back to its usual spot.

Publisher Breakdown:

Indie - 13

Sony - 10

Nintendo - 6

Konami - 5

WB - 5

Capcom - 3

Activision - 3

Ubisoft - 2

Disney - 2

EA - 1

Sega - 1

Take Two - 1

It happened two years in a row, Indie games are my most played. But never has Nintendo been this low, 6 Nintendo games, are you serious. Sony takes the second spot with the usual average of sony games I play a year. WB had a monster year and this list reflects that. So sad to see Konami up there knowing where they are now, they are usually in the middle of the pack. Capcom continues to be lackluster. Second year in a row I only finish 1 sega game, that was Sonic 2. Is my love for Sega over? So this is interesting, I felt like I played most of the big name games, I stick to the mainstream and yet Indie takes a big chunk and the publishers are very scattered.

Franchise Breakdown:

Metal Gear - 4

Star Wars - 3

Mortal Kombat - 2

Resident Evil - 2

Didn't play too many games in one franchise. MGS had a big year for obvious reasons, same with Star Wars. Only one Zelda game this year, I think that breaks a streak of having 2 or more Zelda games each year. Sonic continues to not be on this list. I need to play through the genesis games this year. I haven't done a series playthrough in a long time, too much to play.

Makes me question the quality or lack thereof of the games listed afterwards.

I love me them puzzle games. That's one hell of a puzzle game. And scoring is relative to the price and kind of game, swapper was a downloadable title and is priced as such so I don't have expectations of a huge game. It executes a short but very well designed game and that is great for that kind of game.

I love me them puzzle games. That's one hell of a puzzle game. And scoring is relative to the price and kind of game, swapper was a downloadable title and is priced as such so I don't have expectations of a huge game. It executes a short but very well designed game and that is great for that kind of game.

Yeah I like it too, but putting it in a big list with other games, it doesn't really compare. I get you though.